We attended a wedding in Chicago and it was more than a wedding - it was a family reunion that lasted five days. The first night everyone met for a concert in the park and there were hugs, handshakes and we met some of the bride's family we had never seen before. We spread blankets on the lawn and everyone opened coolers, backpacks and sacks with sandwiches, snacks and drinks. The foods and drinks were passed around to make sure everyone had something to eat and drink and I ended up with a cold-cut sandwich, some chips and a bottle of “bottled water.”

Bottled water!!!  Let me go back over sixty years to give some background on myself. I was raised in rural Kentucky and I drank from wells and cisterns and from streams flowing through fields (except when cattle were present). When with a group of people we all drank from the same dipper getting water out of a bucket. I remember standing around the bucket and as each person dipped their water and took a drink, they passed the dipper to the next person, and the dipper made its round until everyone had quenched his thirst.

In the Boy Scouts we filled our canteens from streams and drank and cooked with that water and when I washed my car I took a drink from the hose to wet my mouth. Linda and I have camped in 523 places and drank their waters and we have even drank water in Mexico and never got sick.

Now here I was, over sixty years old, sitting in a park in Chicago holding my first “bottled water.” Looking around I found many people in the crowd of thousands also holding bottled water and no one seemed concerned or excited. I stared at the bottle a few minutes and wondered if it would taste like the spring water I drank in my youth? Surely it would be healthy and could it possibly relieve my aches and pains, make my eyesight better and cure my dry skin? I had heard such promising attributes of bottled water so I was anxious to give it a try.

Remember, this was a first for me and I didn’t want to embarrass myself not knowing how to get the water out. I didn’t know if I should bite the top off, pry it off, stick it in my mouth while squeezing the sides, or just try to suck the water out. Finally, I saw someone twist their cap off so I did that and then I held it under my nose and took a whiff. It did not smell. I took a drink and washed the water around in my mouth before swallowing and know what - it tasted just like plain old water, the kind I drink out of a water faucet. I was rather disappointed because many people drink nothing but bottled water and I figured they were drinking something great. On the other hand, I was happy to know I hadn’t missed anything in my 60 plus years.

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I decided to do research on bottled water and I was astounded to find it is not pure water from a bubbling stream high in remote mountains. This is some of what I found. The largest producer of bottled water is the Clorox Bleach Company and Coca-Cola and Pepsi are also leading bottlers. None of these companies have nutritious foods in their product lines and selling bottled water keeps their profits high. The majority of bottled water comes straight from city water taps, into the bottles and then sold with fancy names like Aguafina and Dasani, both of which are city tap water. Bottled water does not have to meet government water standards unless it is shipped across state lines and 25% of the brands of water tested by independent labs was found to contain unhealthy chemicals and contaminants. After the water is bottled it sits on warehouse shelves at room temperatures or higher where the bacteria grows 1000% before the consumers drink the water. Odds are 60-70% of bottled water will be “just as good” as water out of a kitchen faucet while 30-40% will be unhealthier and does not meet state or city water standards.